The Bethesda Blog has details on a new version 1.9 update for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that's now in beta testing for the RPG sequel. The beta is available through Steam, and the post has instructions on how to opt in if you want, warning to back up your saved games if you participate in the beta. They say they hope to release this out of beta by the end of the month, and offer the following patch notes:

Skyrim 1.9

NEW FEATURES

Legendary difficulty setting

Legendary Skills – Skills of 100 can be made Legendary. This will reset the skill to 15, return its Perks and allow the skill to affect leveling again. This effectively removes the overall level cap.

Bug fixes after the break…

BUG FIXES

General memory and stability improvements

Fixed issue with quest scripts that were not shutting down properly

Companions will equip better weapons and armor if given to them

Fixed rare issue where player is unable to learn the Clear Skies shout during “The Throat of the World”

Fixed rare instance where Alduin would become invincible during “Alduin’s Bane”

Fixed a rare issue where player could become stuck in Night Mother’s coffin during “Death Incarnate”

Fixed rare issue where protected companions could be killed from poison damage

Ceribaen wrote on Mar 4, 2013, 19:27:Everyone seems to be focusing on resetting your combat skills...Why wouldn't you just reset the easily trainable crafting skills -- and then you can use the perks gained from those to fill out your other trees?

I don't know that you gain the perk points back, though? Maybe you do. If so, you can indeed perk out your other skills.

But even so, ugh, so then you wind up having to go back and brew 9000000000000000000000000000000000000 potions to redo Alchemy to level 100? Bwerk.

I don't powergame enough in Skyrim to know how the level up formula works exactly... but pretty sure you could just keep increasing in level by resetting nothing but the crafting skills? I mean at some point you eventually hit a spot where you've got nothing really to spend money on anyway.

You can do that, yeah, though if you did so from the start you would get murdered, as the world did sort of level up with you, and your combat skills were still shit. In fact, that was one of the most frequently heard complaints early in Skyrim's life: That you could make the game almost impossible if you didn't spend a majority of your time leveling a combat skill.

If you wanted to be someone who leveled Alchemy and Illusion and Smithing and Speech, you'd run into some real problems.

jacobvandy wrote on Mar 4, 2013, 21:52:There is a skill requirement for perks, yes, but it's not uncommon to be lacking perk points for everything you've leveled up. Stuff like lockpicking and speechcraft are leveled naturally while playing and have decent bonuses in their tree, but they're generally very low priorities for perk spending (i.e. considered a waste by most people). Grinding alchemy or smithing would be a way to convert money into extra perks for use there. However, at that point, you might as well just use some silly mod like "Spend Dragon Souls on Perks," and save yourself some time and effort.

Doesn't everybody use that? What else are you going to spend all those Dragon Souls on? All those useless Shouts?